


Friday Nights

by tinglingworld



Series: tumblr prompts [1]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Jealousy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:20:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23889619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinglingworld/pseuds/tinglingworld
Summary: They have dinner and a movie on Fridays. Except when Scully cancels on the movie to go out with a friend.A little jealous Mulder fluff.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Series: tumblr prompts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1766299
Comments: 3
Kudos: 71





	Friday Nights

**Author's Note:**

> From a tumblr prompt list:  
> 3\. “I’m not jealous.”16. “Excuse you?”28. “That’s almost exactly the opposite of what I meant.”
> 
> If you have any prompts you want me to write, feel free to leave me an ask on tumblr :)

“Dinner at my place later?” Mulder asked from his position hunched over a couple of newspaper articles as Scully gathered her coat and purse.

“Yeah. I’ll be over around 7, but I’m gonna have to skip on the movie tonight. A friend invited me for some late birthday celebration drinks.”

Pulling on her coat, Scully didn’t notice the way Mulder’s head shot up, the newspapers suddenly forgotten.

“A friend? Uhm. Do I- know them?” He tried very hard to keep his voice light and the question innocent. Scully rarely went out for drinks with anyone. Was she seeing someone?

“Mulder, you don’t know any of my friends.”

She turned back to him, all ready to leave, and raised a questioning eyebrow.

Okay, so that was true. Mostly. He had met Cathy, a few years ago, whose cello recital they had thoroughly crashed when they were setting up a trap for a sociopathic murderer and ended up getting Scully shot. Not the best impression he’d left that day, probably.

“And since when do you care who I spend my weekends with anyway?” Scully’s expression turned suspicious and he could sense she was close to applying her investigative skills on him which he’d rather avoid. So he hastened to reply:

“I don’t. I mean- I do, but only because you’re skipping movie night for them.”

That seemed to work because the raised eyebrow made way for one of those soft smiles he loved so much.

“I’m sorry about that, really. It’s just that I haven’t seen Sasha in ages and I promised I’d come. I’m meeting my mom tomorrow, but we can do a movie Sunday afternoon if you want?”

Sasha. That was a unisex name. So maybe Scully really was seeing someone. Something heavy and ugly settled in Mulder’s stomach, an itch he couldn’t quite scratch. Sasha could be a woman. But even if not, why would he care so much if Scully was seeing someone? Oh you know exactly why you care about her seeing someone.

“Mulder? Movie on Sunday instead?”

“Who is Sasha?”, he blurted out.

Scully looked at him perplexed, the suspicion from earlier firmly back on her face.

“I told you. A friend whose birthday a couple of weeks ago I missed.”

He should keep quiet, he really should.

“Have you known him for long?”

She didn’t answer, but her expression changed and damn, he’d overstepped. But that heavy, itching feeling in his stomach had gotten the better of him. He let his gaze drop down, back to the newspaper he’d been studying earlier. An unusual number of cattle deaths in the Midwest. He had an X-File on a similar phenomenon somewhere. It could be related. It probably wasn’t. Not that he was actually concentrating on that right now.

“Mulder, are you jealous?”

His head shot up for the second time in 5 minutes. There was a lilt to her voice and something that was almost a grin on her lips as she stepped closer to his desk and leaned one hand against it.

“I’m not jealous!” He instinctively objected. Because he wasn’t. “I’m just- looking out for you. You know- after that Ed Jerse debacle, and then your cancer and-“

“Excuse you?!”

The grin that had been playing on her lips a moment ago was gone, replaced with a stony expression and an icy glare. Well, fuck.

“No! Scully, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean- ”

“Oh, I heard you loud and clear Mulder.”

Her voice was sharp and she turned on her heel, heading for the door.

“I think I’ve changed my mind. No dinner tonight,” she announced, opening it and stepping into the hallway.

“Scully, wait! I’m sorry!”

He sprung to his feet and was relieved when she stopped in the doorway, turning back to meet his eyes again. Her look was the one she usually reserved for the idiots from the bullpen who tried to catch a look down her blouse and it sent a shiver down his back.

“I’m sorry, Scully. I didn’t mean that.”

“Well, what did you mean then? Because to me, it sounded a lot like you’re not trusting my decision-making skills. Like I’m needing your permission for who I’m allowed to go out drinking with.”

“No. No- that is almost the exact opposite of what I meant. I’m-“

She was still looking at him with that icy glare and it made him uncomfortable but he didn’t know how to properly apologize. He knew if he didn’t say something soon she’d turn around and leave and they’d lose all the progress they made in their relationship over the past weeks since her remission. His heart ached at the idea of losing Friday dinner and movie night; losing those precious off-duty moments with her when he got to see her bare-faced and open-hearted, laughing at a bad movie and crumbling nachos all over her lap. No, he couldn’t risk that. He needed to say something; she was sighing and turning back for the hallway already.

“Okay, so maybe I am jealous!”

There. It was out. He couldn’t meet her eyes, but he might as well keep talking now, cause he could’ve just as well said ‘I love you’ and they both knew it.

“Maybe I am jealous at the idea of you seeing someone.”

She didn’t immediately answer and the silence stretched so long, that if he didn’t know better he thought she might’ve left after all. But of course she hadn’t, he’d have heard her heels on the linoleum floor.

“Mulder, Sasha’s a woman,” Scully eventually said quietly, “She’s my old roommate from college.”

He breathed a sigh of relief and dared to look back up at her. The icy glare was gone when their eyes locked, replaced by a softness mixed with something that Mulder couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“I’m not seeing anyone,” she continued as she walked back into the office and towards him.

“You’re not,” he repeated.

She shook her head.

“I’ve been-“, she paused and Mulder thought he saw a flicker of hesitation cross her features. But it was gone as quickly as it came and she continued, “I’ve been hung up on someone for a while now.”

His heartbeat quickened. Was she going where he thought she was going? That seemed too good to be true. Especially after that idiotic argument he just provoked. But she was smiling at him and her eyes were sparkling and there was that expression he couldn’t define and so maybe he wasn’t all wrong after all.

“Would I happen to know that someone?” he dared to ask carefully, looking down at her when she came to a halt directly in front of him. She was so close he could smell her perfume, mixed in, after 8 hours in the office, with that smell he’d come to know was inherently Scully.

“You do, actually,” she now replied, tilting her head, holding his gaze, “I usually meet him for dinner and a movie on Fridays.”

_Oh._

Where a few minutes ago Mulder had felt something ugly and heavy settling in his stomach, now it felt like butterflies were inhabiting it.

She smiled up at him and he got so lost in the sudden warmth of her blue eyes and the meaning of those words that he almost missed it when she rested her hands on his upper arms and placed a quick kiss on his cheek.

“I’ll be over at 7 with food,” she declared, “You pick the movie on Sunday.”

She was already out the door when Mulder found his brain had resumed regular function. His cheek still tingled where her lips had touched it.


End file.
